In today's highly networked world, it is important for computer and network professionals to have basic knowledge of both network hardware, software and their associated configuration options. In order to increase networking efficiencies, bandwidth and functionality, many companies have been busy designing, testing and deploying network devices. Such devices include, but are not limited to, routers, network hubs, switches, repeaters, network interface cards, and other related networking infrastructure. As the proliferation of such networking devices continues to grow and new devices are constantly being released, more and more functionality tends to be added to the different devices to deal with various enhancements.
Unfortunately, the addition of enhancements also means that network professionals must learn what the enhancements are for and how to set the parameters that best enable the particular enhancements. Many times, the introduction of certain enhancements, although well intended, to handle a particular issue, can cause conflicts with existing settings. To complicate this further, network professionals are required to understand how certain enhancements are or are not set in particular network devices. Even when network devices are purchased from the same manufacturer, the settings and parameters can cause conflicts in one device and no conflicts in other devices.
Consequently, as more and more devices are introduced into the market, network professionals are strained to quickly learn the intricacies of the new settings, features and learn how certain settings may impact operation, quality of service (QoS), and other aspects.
In an effort to deal with the ever increasing pressures of learning new network devices, manufacturers of these devices provide detailed manuals. These detailed manuals, however, are so complex, voluminous and not always accurate or detailed that network professionals often times have to take courses to simply learn how to configure the device into their network or networks. Of course this assumes that the network professional has an understanding of the technology being addressed, else training on the technology is also necessary. As this process is time consuming, many network professionals who are pressured with time constraints do not take these courses and simply attempt to install the device using basic knowledge or experience. Although this is a fair solution for network professionals having sufficient experience with network equipment, network topologies and design, protocols, QoS rules, and settings, a larger number of network professionals do not have the skills needed to properly set up a system by purely establishing “best guess” settings and quick skimming of voluminous manuals provided by the device manufacturers.
In many cases, a company that is implementing a given network device cannot risk configuring a network device that will provide inadequate QoS or associated settings. For instance, if an incorrect setting is established for QoS, a network may fail to provide sufficient bandwidth for voice data or certain mission critical data transfers. If voice data is not provided with sufficient priority or bandwidth, for example, the company may be detrimentally impacted as their voice calls will experience disruptions that can make conversations unintelligible.
Thus, for companies that must have a proven solution in place before it is launched live, network professionals are forced to set up a test network to verify proper operations prior to deploying it live. The test network, often referred to as a test lab, requires the network professional to purchase several network devices (including the device under test (DUT)), test equipment, interconnect several computers and then run network traffic tests to attempt a simulation of the DUT in the target setting for which the DUT is intended. The building of this test network is a very manually intensive process that requires significant expenditures in test equipment for the simulation of test traffic, response times, latencies, QoS parameters, and changes in the simulations to test impacts in minor or major changes in network traffic. There is also the associated cost involved with training on the use of the test equipment and proper analysis of the test equipment results.
Although the test network results are obtained and can be used in the ultimate configuration of a live network device, the time expenditure, test equipment costs, and laborious network professional time to obtain these results can be so high that many firms simply cannot afford to take on the manual process. As a result, many network professionals tend to avoid upgrading to new network devices or simply use best guesses to set up new network devices. Of course, when devices are set up without the knowledge of what may happen under certain network traffic, the network professionals are taking the risk of having the network devices operate at less than optimal settings or at settings that can degrade the service needed in certain latency or mission critical application environments.